Bus 330 - Principles of Marketing - Using Effective Marketing Strategies to Achieve Success

Property Management: Using effective marketing strategies to achieve success

Principles of Marketing: BUS330

Over the last five years I have been a leasing agent in the industry of Property Management. Most of my time is spent meeting with people and building personal relationships. The marketing strategies that I have learned in Principles of Marketing directly apply to my industry. As a company we need to use marketing to our advantage. Property Management as an industry relies on word-of-mouth, but we also need to rely on proven marketing strategies. As a successful person in this field I must use marketing effectively. Property Management is an industry that has a great amount of competition so individual companies must build their brand, use pricing to their advantage, use direct and online marketing and build relationships through personal selling. The marketing concepts I have learned in this course applies directly to the Property Management industry.

The company where I am employed has been recently working towards building our brand. The owner bought us books to read on brand building and wants our opinions on how to achieve this. Building a brand takes a lot of work and strategizing. A brand resonates with customers and allows a company to have a deeper connection with consumers. According to Scott Glatstein, the author of "5 Steps to Brand Building", there are a list of things to keep in mind when building your brand. The following steps are: identify reasons-to-believe, identify customer touchpoints, determine the most influential touchpoints, design the ultimate experience, and align the organization to consistently deliver the optimal experience. These steps seem pretty easy, but can be difficult when multiple employees must adapt to these ideas and carry them out. The first step, "identify reasons-to-believe", is explained by Glatstein, "Your brand promise is irrelevant if your customers do not believe it. Therefore, your promise must be supported by reasons-to-believe.

This will automatically add substance to the promise and define specific expectations for the customer" (http://sbinfocanada.about.com/od/marketing/a/brandbuildingsg.htm). In our industry we can say that we will provide the utmost customer service, but if we receive negative online reviews, we may lose consumers interest in our services. At my company we ask our happy customers to please give us positive reviews on online sites such as Yelp. These reviews allow consumers who do online searches to see that our services have been enjoyed by other consumers. The next step, "identify customer touchpoints", is explained by Glatstein, "Each individual step in your business process contains a number of touchpoints when the customer comes in contact with your brand. Your ultimate goal is to have each touchpoint reinforce and fulfill your marketplace promise". Currently in my office we are trying to map out our steps of service and ensure that we have someone responsible for making sure that particular step is running smoothly. Our company just spent a large sum of money remodeling the inside of our office. Our CEO wanted a young, artsy, and modern vibe to the office. We upgraded with modern furniture, paintings and a new bathroom. The third step, "determine the most influential touchpoints", as Glatstein explains, "All touchpoints are not created equal. Some will naturally play a larger role in determining your company's overall customer experience. For example, if your product is ice cream, taste is typically more important than package design". In my industry of Property Management, the most important touchpoints would be attractive and clean properties, and time management. A leasing agent must have good time management skills because they are the constant liaison between the tenants and the property owners. In the article "Time Management an Important Component of Property Management" by Wynne Whyman, he states, "If the majority of your time is spent doing and not planning, your work life might have a chaotic feel to it. It doesn't have to. If you feel as though you're just moving from one crisis to another-don't worry. You can change that by learning to deal with the tasks at hand in a systematic way. To have enough time on a regular basis to reflect, regroup, and plan, you need to be proactive rather than reactive"(http://www.humankinetics.com/excerpts/excerpts/time-management-important-component-of-property-management-plan). The fourth step, "design the optimal experience", means that as a company we should enforce a reason-to-believe at every touchpoint. In my office we strive to make the first impression to the last step a pleasurable experience. We try to keep our personal relationships with all of our tenants and owners. We assist people in finding homes, getting them into their home, maintaining their homes and moving them out of their homes. This process is very personal and we try to make it like we care and they are a part of a family. The last step Glatstein lists is, "align the organization to consistently deliver the optimal experience". Glatstein states, "Look beyond employees that have direct contact with your customers. The impacts of behind-the-scenes employees are less obvious but no less important. Similarly, the impact of workflow processes and tools (i.e. technology systems) on the customer experience may be less intuitive but crucial to consistent delivery". We use certain calendars, and online applications that help us keep organized and everyone on the same page. In the article, "To Deliver the Best Customer Experience Your Customers Need to Shape Your Business", by Steven Bruce, it explains how delivering the ultimate customer experience must include the customer's opinions. At our company we ask our tenants for constant comments and suggestions on our services. Then we use those comments and suggestions to guide our steps of service and make an excellent overall customer service experience. Bruce also states, "Complaints and problems occur when your customer experience has failed. So identifying and resolving issues needs to be a priority. Capture them. Make them visible within the organization. Create feedback loops and avoid a 'blame culture" (http://www.optimalusability.com/2010/business/to-deliver-the-best-customer-experience-your-customers-need-to-shape-your-business-by-steven-bruce/). This is an important factor in having an enjoyable customer experience. In Property Management, taking care of customer complaints and resolving them quickly is important. Our tenants have a lot of needs and how we address those needs and get them resolved will determine how we build our